Bill Benner

I have a close friend with whom I can discuss amicably any subject under the sun. Except one: Bob Knight. My pal considers the hiring of Knight one of the greatest deeds in the history of Indiana University, and the firing of Knight one of its worst. He believes former IU President Myles Brand is the devil and former Athletic Director Clarence Doninger was an incompetent boob. My friend traces virtually all of IU’s athletic and academic shortcomings to that…

“Nursing’s a lot harder than coaching, I can tell you that,” Keady, 70, said from his Tippecanoe County home, not far from Purdue University where the basketball court in Mackey Arena bears his name. After 25 years on the Purdue sidelines in a storied career that had almost everything except the storybook ending, Keady signed on last year as an assistant coach with the NBA’s Toronto Raptors. This year, Raptors management changed and his contract was not renewed. Just as…

Talk about the straw that stirs the drink. That youngster gives maximum effort every second. And while it’s early, I’d stack Graves and his running mate, Michael Green, against any backcourt tandem in the country. Though they couldn’t come out and say it, the NCAA folks who now run the Preseason NIT had to be inwardly thrilled to watch Butler and Gonzaga University reach the championship game on the Madison Square Garden stage. Their rosters are filled with players who…

In honor of the Indiana Pacers’ 40th anniversary season, let’s stroll down memory lane and gather some all-time picks: MVP: Reggie Miller First team: center Mel Daniels; forwards Roger Brown and George McGinnis; guards Reggie Miller and Vern Fleming Second team: center Rik Smits; forwards Billy Knight and Chuck Person; guards Mark Jackson and Don Buse Third team: center Jermaine O’Neal; forwards Dale Davis and Herb Williams; guards Freddie Lewis and Johnny Davis Best player that would have made the…

Growing up, my brothers and I had the usual constructiontype toys: Lincoln Logs, an Erector Set, Tinker Toys and-if memory serves me-this kit from Kenner you could use to assemble the plastic skyscraper of your imagination. Among the things I tried to build, however, were gymnasiums and stadiums, because I always was fascinated with places that brought together large numbers of people. But since I had the attention span of a gnat and the conceptual engineering skills of an eventual…

There’s nothing better than Friday night at a high school football game. Unless it’s Saturday afternoon at a college football game (even if it is Indiana University). Or Sunday afternoon at an NFL game. Then again, how about all the above on an idyllic late-summer weekend? So, my wife, Sherry, and I set out for a tripleheader gridiron adventure. And before I proceed, let me say it’s terrific to have a bride who will happily endure three football games in…

I pulled up the column I wrote five years ago this week. It was published five days after 9/11. This is how it began: “When you have a tragedy of such immense proportions as the one visited on America last week, it renders the world of sport to the status of the trivial, the trite, the absolutely, totally inconsequential.” But I also expressed the belief that it would be sport that would aid us in our recovery. “Yet as meaningless…

Well, here we go again. Another season of high hopes for your Indianapolis Colts or, as many consider them, “our” Indianapolis Colts. They feel we’re all in this together. That includes you, the folks you’ve assembled there on West 56th Street, and everybody here in the local universe who supports the product by buying tickets, leasing suites, purchasing gear, being a sponsor, providing copious coverage, or simply being a fan in front of the TV. Yes, at the end of…

Ah, it’s almost that time again. For the pomp. The pageantry. The Bloody Marys and brats in the parking lot. There are few things I look forward to more than college football season. And that would include Indiana University’s season. Especially IU’s season, in fact. File it under perverse pleasure. Somehow, I find ecstasy in the continuing agony of IU football. Time and again you get punched in the gut only to respond, “Sir, can I have another?” It’s easy…

It was one of the worst from the perspective that so many of the things I take for granted here-clean water, dependable electricity, food you could trust, communications tools and, most of all, freedom-weren’t to be found there, at least not consistently. But that perspective also made it one of the best experiences because it reminded me of all the wonderful things we have here in America, starting with freedom. It was heartbreaking to travel around Havana and imagine how…

Until proven otherwise, I like to believe the best about people. This past May, I emceed a luncheon at which an engaging young man named Justin Gatlin was the featured attraction. He came to Indianapolis to help promote locally based USA Track & Field’s national championships, and he arrived in our town within hours of tying the world record in the 100 meters. I couldn’t have been more impressed with Gatlin, wrote glowingly about him in this column, and encouraged…

Time to reprise the list (besides, I’m on vacation): The top 25 must-see’s, must-do’s to be a true, bona fide, no-doubt-aboutit Indiana sports fan. 1. The Indianapolis 500. OK, it’s not quite what it used to be. But it still is the largest single-day sporting event in the world. And few moments in sport can match the flying start of the race. 2. A basketball game in Hinkle Fieldhouse, either high school or the Butler Bulldogs. Hinkle remains the mecca….

Team USA gathered in Las Vegas this past week to begin its attempt to reclaim America’s rightful place-which would be first place-in international basketball. Imagine, American hoopsters with a hill to climb. Who’d a thunk it? Well, me, for one. Anyone who was paying attention to international hoops-and I happen to be an aficionado-could see that America’s dominance, so pronounced when the 1992 Olympic Dream Team pounded hapless opponents on its way to the gold medal, was slip, slip, slipping…

I’ve been blessed to experience a multitude of “goose-bump” moments in sports. Watching Indiana’s Hoosiers complete a perfect season and win a national basketball title in Philadelphia. Jack Nicklaus capturing a Masters at age 46. Hoosier Fuzzy Zoeller winning a U.S. Open at Winged Foot in a playoff with Greg Norman. A New Castle/Batesville high school basketball regional championship game at Chrysler Fieldhouse that epitomized all that boys’ basketball used to be in Indiana. So many incredible performances at Olympic…

First the Big Ten basketball tournaments. Now the Western Open. Maybe those broad shoulders are beginning to sag a bit. The news that Chicago-longtime host of the prestigious Western Open-is now going to share its PGA Tour stop with Indianapolis/Carmel (Crooked Stick), St. Louis (Bellerive) and quite likely Minneapolis (Hazeltine National) was another blow that sucked some of the air out of the Windy City. Chicago Tribune golf writer Ed Sherman called it “the worst deal for Chicago golf fans…

Not surprisingly, Indianapolis Indians President Max Schumacher and Victory Field, his own field of dreams, have something in common. Neither Max nor the ballpark looks anywhere close to their age. And by the happy coincidence of timing, there will be a double celebration at that downtown beauty of a ballpark July 16. Recognition will be made of Victory Field’s 10th anniversary. Hard to believe, but it’s been a decade since that pristine night, July 11, 1996, when the gates flew…